“Green Wheat Field with Cypress” by Vincent van Gogh

“Green Wheat Field with Cypress” by Vincent van Gogh

“Green Wheat Field with Cypress” by Vincent van Gogh was completed in 1889, while van Gogh was voluntarily incarcerated at the asylum of St. Paul near Saint-Rémy in Provence, France. Van Gogh created several paintings of wheat fields with cypresses when he was able to leave the asylum and explore the landscape. This painting does not manifest the psychological tension that can be found in some of his other pictures during this period.

Van Gogh was fond of painting cypresses and wheat fields, and he depicted them many times over the years. They symbolised the cycle of life and death, and he found them inspiring and comforting. At the time of this painting, van Gogh wrote to his sister that he had just completed a painting depicting:

“a field of yellowing wheat surrounded by brambles and green bushes. At the end of the field a little pink house with a tall and dark cypress tree that stands out against the distant purplish and bluish hills, and against a forget-me-not blue sky streaked with pink whose pure tones contrast with the already heavy, scorched ears, whose tones are as warm as the crust of a loaf of bread.”

Vincent Willem van Gogh is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. Van Gogh was unsuccessful during his lifetime and was considered a madman and a failure. He created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They were characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art.